Refreshing Perspectives: Columbus Architecture, Liz Ingram Prints

Surfacing Liz Ingram and Bernd Hildebrandt Two panels 100 cm x 8 m each Dye sublimation prints on polyester fabric, ‘mono’ banner system hardware (Praxis Limited London) 2013

I remember as a child–I grew up part of my life in India–and the monsoons would come and there’d be floods and we would be so delighted, sticking your tongue to catch the water, getting soaked, running through streets that had two feet of water and having an absolute riot.

–Artist Liz Ingram

We can probably all think back to those moments in our childhood when we were delighted by the natural world. Or maybe there was something man-made that put a spell on us?

In 1954 the Irwin Union Bank designed by Eero Saarinen had just opened and my mother took me in there and I still remember the effect that this building had on me.

–Columbus architecture tour guide Donna Sasse

Seeing the world through a child’s eyes. Today, we speak with artists and educators who believe in the power of art to refresh our experience of the world—

I have a friend who’s teaching poetry to inner city kids in Brazil, in the form of rap battles. Immediately they get a little copy book, they start writing verse, they get into their own thing. They have a sense of aesthetic that’s emerging there, and they have something else to think about  that connects them to the world.

–Artist Vik Muniz

A Columbus, Indiana tour guide’s challenge is to make the city’s architecture as fascinating to the city’s natives as it is to those who might encounter it on screen in the eponymous film, which just premiered at Sundance.  Printmaker Liz Ingram’s richly layered images disorient and intervene in a way designed to return a viewer to a childlike sense of wonder and, in turn, respect for the natural world.  Ingram and partner Bernd Hildebrandt visited Indiana University’s School of Art and Design in November 2016 as part of the McKinney Visiting Artist Series. And Vik Muniz, whose playful “photographic delusions” force us to look twice before identifying their subject, shares his thoughts on the power of art to inspire us to care for ourselves, for one another, and connect with the world.  A mid-career retrospective of Muniz’s work is on view at IU’s Eskenazi Museum of Art in Bloomington through Sunday, February 5.

Stories On This Episode

Coming Soon, To A Theater (Or An Architecture Tour) Near You

By Annie Corrigan - Feb 7, 2017

While a new film is sparking national interest about Columbus architecture, a veteran tour guide hopes to refresh locals' passion for hometown design.